


The Last One To Know

by OnTheRoadSoFar



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 09:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17159771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheRoadSoFar/pseuds/OnTheRoadSoFar
Summary: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is out in theaters. For John, this brings back memories that will never make it to any screen, big or small.





	The Last One To Know

Towards the end of the year, John inevitably started seeing it everywhere. First in online advertisement, then on the telly. Later he saw it in the paper, in magazines, in the supermarket, and on that neon billboard in town which he happened to pass in his car on a weekly basis. But mostly he saw it at home. In fact, it was the first thing he saw in the morning and the last thing he saw before turning in at night, because the whole time it was right there, in the top drawer of his nightstand. Greeting him. Eyeing him? Haunting him. He knew he needed to keep it close by, for reasons unclear, or possibly too clear, yet he could not for the life of him be persuaded to pop it in the dvd player. He’d never meant to; he wouldn’t. Everyone was still waiting expectantly - and patiently, he might add - for his response, but only a handful of people knew that it wasn’t coming. Not tomorrow, not in a hundred years. 

All my life. Still ahead. Pity me.

And so the days went on, weeks passed. It got colder and darker, and then Christmas made its annual appearance with just the right amount of distractions from that little, shiny disc in the drawer. After a while he got so used to having it there that it began to lose its meaning, became an abstract concept as foreign as alternate realities, different outcomes. So when Brian called one morning and said that the young actor playing Freddie had been nominated for an Academy Award, John was genuinely happy for him, for all of them. He was sure it was well deserved - he had heard nothing but the highest praise of the film from the people around him and the people he met regarding the acting performances, the writing, the cinematography. The use of their songs. All of it. He even mustered a “that’s wonderful” when Brian told him of the new generation of fans pouring their unconditional love on all of their old albums and on each one of the four of them, especially Freddie. “I’m sure,” John answered, after a pause. Later that night, he found himself opening the drawer to get out a book, and catching a glimpse of the disc there, he whispered so gently that he could barely hear the words himself, “you’d love all this, wouldn’t you”. It wasn’t a question. And he smiled quietly as he spoke in the half-darkness, his head suddenly dizzy with memories so distant, so out of focus, that they might as well have been the remnants of half-remembered dreams dreamt in another life by someone who wasn’t him. Couldn’t be him. Someone young, inexperienced, alive. Someone who saw the good in every strange face he met along the way, who wanted to write songs about the moon and the stars and friendship and fragrant, yellow flowers on foreign hilltops. Beauty. Love. Happiness. Surely, it was, it must all have been, a dream. Nothing more. 

Ooh, you’re making me live. 

John’s fingertips traced the transparent plastic that held the disc, his hand reflected, distorted, in its garish, circular surface. It was like looking at someone else’s hand. The lines, the pale, cold skin - that wasn’t his hand at all. His hand was smooth and warm, with bony joints and shiny nails. His hand was illuminated by a single, orange lamp in the far corner of an auburn room with heavy, tan curtains and a golden chandelier with arms glistening quietly in the stagnant, musky atmosphere. His hand tugged a lock of raven black hair behind the ear of his best friend, of the man right there, on the other pillow, smiling back at him with tightly-closed, red lips and dark, gentle eyes that held all the fun and all the mischief and all the goodness in the world. 

A giggle. A steadying palm on his heaving chest. A voice as soft as the harp of Heaven’s angels. 

“Did you enjoy that? Deacy. Deacy?” Another giggle. “You do realize you have the reddest of faces right now, right?” 

“No. Yes. What?”

Freddie’s laugh broke the silence of the hotel room. “I’ll take that as a yes to the first question.” Giggle. Freddie moved his head so that their noses were almost touching, and then he kissed John’s lips briefly and soundlessly before settling back on his pillow. He might have said something else after that, but the pounding in John’s ears, confusing him with every breath he took, muted all other sounds and sights and smells around him. He was only susceptible to touch. 

The only sense impressions he remembered was touch. The only thing he remembered was warm lips on his, tingling curls falling on his burning cheek, long fingers interlacing with those of his own smooth, young hand. Young. Warm. Kiss... 

There was a knock on the half-open door and just like that, the memory was gone, like a fantasy when reality hits. John swallowed the lump in his throat as he closed the drawer, turned around and walked away. In the doorway, he was acutely aware of his own pulse. 

“You didn’t find the book?” 

“Oh. Uhm, no. No. I think maybe it’s in the living room.”

“You okay?”

“Sure, yeah. I’ll just go see if it’s- if it’s in the living room, shall I?” 

“Okay.” 

Those days are all gone now but one thing’s still true. 

And so the new year began as it inevitably will. One more year. They put up another poster on the neon billboard in town, and people stopped asking John if he had seen the film. Sometimes its passing, it succumbing to new films and new topics of conversation, made John feel like he’d waisted his chance. That he had missed out on something and now he would never know. And he recognized himself in that feeling and held on to it like one does a bad habit that no one else knows you have. Around the globe, the film had left its unseen mark in the hearts of young people ready to take on the world. They’d all carry a little piece of Freddie with them as they grew up, went to college, embarked on careers and started families. Lived their lives. John knew what that was like and what a curse and a blessing it was. What all those new fans would never know, however - what only he knew - was what it felt like to have a part of you taken in return, never to get it back. To live without some vital ingredient that made you who you are, even if you never quite understood what it was. Freddie had taken that elusive part of John with him to wherever he was now, and that young, innocent boy who had been kissed by Freddie in a dimly lit hotel room on a clear July night all those years ago had vanished like dreams when you wake up. 

A whisper. 

I think I’m in love with you, John.

I’m- I think I’m in love with you, too.

What should have been their beginning was really the end. The story that only John could tell. 

Except he couldn’t.

Pity me.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Turn Back The Tide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17659778) by [vanishing_time](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishing_time/pseuds/vanishing_time)




End file.
